They first met playing billiards. It was on a September evening in the 1950s at the Imperial Hotel in Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare. They were both on holiday with separate groups of friends. Later that evening in the hotel they danced together for the first time. Joseph, my father, cannot remember what tune the pianist was playing. My mother Catherine does. It was Some Enchanted Evening. They were married within a year.
When I was a child we used to go as a family to the Imperial hotel in Lisdoonvarna for wedding anniversary dinners. One of my earliest memories is of hiding behind the curtains of its glass veranda and hearing the sound of billiard balls pocking off baize in the adjoining room: the same billiards table my parents had played on that first night when they met.
There are two things that everyone knows about Lisdoonvarna. One, it first achieved fame as Ireland's only spa town. Two, it now hosts a month-long Matchmaking Festival each September, currently in full flight. (It started on August 29th and runs until October 5th.)
Several decades ago bathing in noxious-smelling sulphuric water may have been a big attraction to some holiday-makers but it's definitely not what draws the crowds now. In the 1950s both my parents danced on the terrace outside the spa wells, a morning ritual that still takes place today, referred to now in the official programme as "the first chance of the day". But even then neither of them bathed in the water or drank a glass of it and they have no recollection of any of their friends doing so either.
So why did they go to Lisdoonvarna for their holidays? "You must remember that this was a time before foreign holidays and cheap flights," my mother explains. "And Lisdoonvarna had a lot of hotels left from the time when the spa wells was big business. In September it was where people who hadn't had a holiday all summer went because the seaside resorts had all closed down for the season." There was no official matchmaking festival there then, but she concedes: "It would be true to say that Lisdoonvarna was associated with romance."
According to one of the festival's main organisers, hotelier Jim White, in its current format the month-long event brings in business worth £5 million to Lisdoonvarna. The festival is at its busiest at weekends, when up to 7,000 people jam the town.
The day I visit, coaches from Monaghan, Mayo, Meath and Donegal stretch in an unbroken line down the main street. All the car parks are full. There are a great number of people in Lisdoonvarna and none of them appears to be in the vicinity of the spa wells.
Studying the official information it's difficult to see what makes Lisdoonvarna's festival different. Technically any Irish town could put on a festival like this and call it a matchmaking festival. There's a barbecue one weekend, a marching band competition another weekend, horse racing, and a Queen of the Burren and Mr Lisdoonvarna contest.
In all probability Lisdoonvarna owes a very large debt to Christy Moore. "Lisdoon, Lisdoon, Lisdoon, Lisdoonvarna! I'm off for a bit of craic, the women and the beer!" Who hasn't sung along to this wonderfully manic chorus and wondered if Lisdoonvarna was really as much craic as promised? Who goes to Lisdoonvarna these days? When my parents were there the under-30 age group far outnumbered the over-30s. Both Mark Flanagan, also closely involved with organising the festival, and Jim White say that 95 per cent of the people who attend are Irish, despite the brouhaha about planeloads of Americans or Japanese. Tipperary, Mayo, Kerry and Clare seem to be the best represented counties.
"It's an over-30s festival," says Jim White . A trawl of the bars and dancefloors confirm this. The couples dancing to One Day At A Time, Sweet Jesus, in the Hydro Hotel and to Try A Little Kindness in the Matchmakers Bar at the Imperial are definitely over 30 - by at least 20 years.
I grew up in Clare but, until this year, have never been to Lisdoonvarna during the festival. Is the marketing success of the event double-edged? Do young people find the idea of a huge matchmaking festival either so hilarious or so uncool that they stay away in droves? Put this to Jim White and his answer is to wait until midnight and have a look at the Hydro's disco: but then every small town in Ireland with a Saturday-night disco will draw a young crowd.
Ask him if there's a gay following to the festival and he looks completely taken aback. "Oh no, no, no, nothing like that." It's surprising, because the very kitschness of Lisdoonvarna's matchmaking festival would seem to make it obviously appealing to some, but maybe I've spent too long in London.
If most of the people who do attend are over 30, would many of them be separated? At first he's adamant that they're not but then he reconsiders. "Well yes. I suppose some of them must be, given their age." He looks distinctly uncomfortable. In a country not long out of the divorce woods, a long-running matchmaking festival and separated couples do not seem easily compatible.
Later, in the Matchmakers Bar, I wander around with my Guinness and ask people at random why they're there. "For the craic," is the unvarying reply. Christy Moore obviously knew what he was singing about. Have any of them taken the waters? John and Pat from Roscommon and Sandra and Kathleen from Cork all roar with laughter at this. No, they have not and nor do they intend to. Would they have come by themselves, I ask? No, definitely not.
"I wouldn't feel comfortable being here by myself," Kathleen says. The others agree. "It's one big party, and it's a bonus if you do meet someone." They all reckon the majority of the festival-goers are 40-plus: "Apart from us, of course."
I do come across someone who is here for the waters. Tom, from Quin, Co Clare, says he brings his mother here for a few days every year to take the waters.
"It's really because of my mother I come here. I do it for her, and then, when she's in bed, I have a chance to go out myself." Has he met anyone here over the years? "I have had many marriages here," is the magnificent answer.
At the bar, Pat from Rathkeale, Co Limerick, is ordering a drink. What brings him to Lisdoon? Holding up his glass he says simply: "This." His friends are at the other end of the bar, they're all there "for an almighty session".
I spy a young woman with a backpack and pelt over to talk to her. Darcy is from California and just arrived in Lisdoonvarna this afternoon.
"I was given a lift by a farmer and told there was a great festival on here. But he didn't say what sort of a festival!" What does she think of it? She holds her newly-pulled pint of Guinness aloft: "I haven't stopped laughing since I arrived and this is only my first drink!" She doesn't get a chance to volunteer anything else: suddenly she's being chatted up by three men one of whom starts explaining the meaning of the word "craic" to her.
Between the marketing and Christy Moore and the bar extensions it's no wonder Lisdoonvarna makes an average of £1 million a week during the festival. How many people meet their life partners there is a trickier statistic. But my parents certainly did: an enchanted evening that's turned out to last a lifetime.